Contemporary art trends and news from Asia and beyond

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Art Radar Asia News conducts original research and scans global news sources to bring you selected topical stories about the taste-changing, news-making and the up and coming in Asian contemporary art.

“My first exhibit was held in this space 20 years ago. It seems that I haven’t improved much over that time because 20 years later I’m still … underground.” Tsong Pu, as quoted in the Taipei Times.

You Are The Beautiful Flower, Mix Media, 1996:2010 (re-presented in TFAM)

Tsong Pu was born in Shanghai (China) in 1947. He attended Fu-Shing Commerce and Industry High School in Taipei, Taiwan, and went on to study at Las Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando de Madrio, Spain. He professes to choosing a school where he would be forced to draw realistically, a style that is in direct contrast with the abstract work he has created since leaving Spain and returning to Taiwan in 1981.

Tsong Pu, the artist. Photo taken in TFAM

Tsong Pu has had a keen interest in European and American abstract expressionism since he was quite young. His early influences included Western art magazines from Japan and the US; the knowledge he took from these separated him from his peers.

In 1984, Tsong was presented with an award in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum sponsored “Contemporary Art Trends in the R.O.C. Exhibition”, an award hailed as being “an index of progress for Taiwan’s contemporary art world.”

He has held numerous solo exhibitions since 1983 in Spain and in Taiwan, as well as participated in domestic and international group exhibitions all over Asia, in Spain, the US, the UK, and Australia.

Tsong Pu is most well known for a painting style he developed during the 1980s, in which he paints an abstract pattern based on a grid, occasionally with diagonal lines of white. This is a method often praised by art critics as it has the ability to promote an emotional response while being thoroughly mechanical.

Transition, Acrylic on canvas, 130x193.5 cm, 1999

Tsong Pu is often viewed as one of the most progressive artists working in Taiwan today. His 1983 solo exhibition, “A Meeting of Mind and Material”, broke with established rules of painting, the result of his desire to abstain from simply drawing realistically and seeking new ways to present his ideas. He has been praised for his ability to embrace new concepts and new media, as he composes his paintings using inspiration from his everyday surroundings.

Enticing Encounter II, Mix Media, 193x130 cm, 1983

Editors’ Note:

We have since published a three-part interview in which Tsong Pu discusses six of his artworks in depth. This is framed by some discussion of the Taiwanese contemporary art community, past and present.

Leleisi’uao began his artistic career as a widely celebrated social commentator on Samoans living in New Zealand; his paintings controversially exploring issues associated the Samoan diaspora. As he has developed his style, he has begun to both internalize and universalize these themes, exploring fantastical worlds and opening his art to a global audience.

Areatures of the Arctaur People I, 2009

His early art can be uncomfortable to view, often described by critics as confronting and controversial. In these works, his themes and intentions are obvious to the viewer; he shouts them from the canvas. During the late 1990s, Leleisi’uao’s paintings were highly politicized, socially motivated and somewhat autobiographical. He dealt obviously with the societal problems – domestic violence, poverty, unemployment and youth suicide – faced by blue-collar Pacific Island, particularly Samoan, immigrants to New Zealand.

“Leleisi’uao’s work emerges as a telling and insightful contrast to the colour, festivities and general brightness that characterizes popular media representations of Pacific Islands cultures.” Caroline Vercoe MA, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland

The Immigrant, 1997

Pacific Island communities are generally strongly Christian and Leleisi’uao often highlighted the negative impact of the church on Samoan families, painting expressionistic pastors getting richer as communities get poorer. This focus on the negative albeit real issues faced by Pacific Islanders living in New Zealand is something that at times put him at odds with local communities.

“My early work in Samoan diaspora was necessary for self-development. It is a universal theme amongst concerns such as racism, domestic violence [and] suicide. I was in an environment and position in which these issues needed to be addressed and I used my vocation to create such works.” Andy Leleisi’uao, 2010

Angel of Falo, 2000

Since the early 2000s, however, Leleisi’uao has moderated and universalized his voice, shifting his painting focus and style. His most recent paintings are far less direct in their presentation of the painter’s ambitions and motivations. While still dealing with issues of social dislocation, he utilizes mythology and spiritualism to conjure up alternate universes populated with fantastical creatures.

“In these more recent works though the voice is more moderated and rather than a Pacific voice the works have a more universal theme of social and moral dysfunction and alienation.” John Daly, National Business Review, 2009

A critic described paintings in 2009 exhibition Le Onoeva – Misunderstood Aitu as “Armageddon-like, with gods and demons bringing saviour and damnation to a waiting populace,” while many others noted the recent moderation of his style.

“My role has changed over the years. My obligations towards social and political issues remain but at the moment I am on a cryptid journey I am really enjoying.” Andy Leleisi’uao, 2010

Though reportedly toned-down, Leleisi’uao’s newer representations still manage to stir public opinion; as reported in 2009 in the National Business Review, a commissioned public mural project planned for a community centre in South Auckland, New Zealand, came to a halt due to local community backlash.

The contemporary Japanese art guru Takashi Murakami is continuing to shape the infrastructure of the art world through his biannual Geisai art fair, which Murakami intends to expand to multiple international cities. The Art Newspaper reports that Geisai Taiwan, to be held in Taipei, will replace Geisai Miami this December. The new Geisai Taiwan event is planned to have more than 200 exhibition booths for new artists. In contrast, the cancelled Miami event was structured differently, presenting only 21 new artists in 2008 which a panel selected from a pool of applicants. The event was originally intended to coincide with Art Basel Miami.

Regarding the cancellation, the spokesperson for Murakami’s company commented:

” We would not say that Geisai Miami has been cancelled, but rather that we are simply building on our desire to expand the Geisai event/concept worldwide.”

Geisai has been highly successful in Japan, growing each year since its 2002 Tokyo inception and repeatedly attracting 1,000 participants and 9,000 visitors for the one-day event.

Geisai is produced by Murakami’s company Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., and is intended as a platform to discover new artistic talent.

Soichi Yamaguchi, whose art now commands high prices, entered Geisai as an unknown artist and cites his win at Geisai #9 in 2007 as the turning point in his career that helped him find gallery representation. The Japanese event has taken on a festival-like feel, and has been highly accessible for new artists, with booth fees starting at ¥25,000 (approximately $270 USD).